Tracks

The recent trends in several research fields of AI. Our intention is not only to discuss the main problems of AI, but also to establish a future common agenda for philosophers, scientists and thinkers. Like contemporary Hilberts, and with the help of the historical background of the last fifty years, we should describe the real problems of the field, those that have become central parts of intense thinking, and develop a precise set of the problems to be solved or, at least, critically studied.

E-CAP 2007 will have eleven tracks, each with one or more track chairs:

1.

Philosophy of Computer Science

2.

Computer-based Learning and Teaching Strategies and Resources & The Impact of Distance Learning on the Teaching of Philosophy and Computing

What is the philosophy of computer science (PCS)? We take the PCS to be that branch of philosophy which is concerned with the investigation of philosophical problems that arise from within computer science. By analogy, the PCS stands to computer science as does the philosophy of mathematics to mathematics and the philosophy of physics to physics. We solicit papers investigating philosophical questions including, but not limited to, the following:

·

Metaphysics. What is the subject matter of computer science? Are computer programs mathematical entities, human artefacts, or 'natural kinds'? Alternatively, is computer science indeed a science, is it a branch of mathematics, or perhaps an engineering discipline?

·

Ontology. What is the (top-level) taxonomy of computer programs? What is the relation between meta-software, software, and hardware? Which ontological commitments are made in programs (“source code”): are they committed to objects in the real world, to objects in the programming paradigm's vocabulary (such as mathematical functions in functional programming and objects and classes in object-oriented programming), or perhaps to the types defined in the program?

·

Methodology. What is the role of mathematics in computer science? Is mathematical modelling there to supplement or replace the engineering enterprise? Is computer science an empirical theory? What would an experiment in computer science look like, and how would it be different (if at all) from an experiment in empirical sciences?

2.

Computer-based Learning and Teaching Strategies and Resources & The Impact of Distance Learning on the Teaching of Philosophy and Computing

During this event special attention will be paid to topics such as: the nature of information in biological systems, dynamics of biomolecular networks, biological or 'wetware' implementations of computational tasks, cellular and organismic complexity, the scope and potential of large-scale evolutionary simulations, and philosophical and ethical issues arising in bioinformatics and artificial life.

The conference will deal with all aspects of the "computational turn" that is occurring through the interaction of the disciplines of philosophy and computing. The conference is interdisciplinary: we invite papers from philosophy, computer science, social science and related disciplines. During this event special attention will be paid to the Philosophy of Information and Information Technology, including, but not limited to, the areas and topics like: a. Information (data, information and knowledge; logic and information; competing concepts of information; history of the concept of information), b. Methodology and Applications (critical investigation of the methodology of PI; informational perspectives on language, mind, and cognition; use of 'information' in the philosophy of science), c. Representation and Organisation (the representation of information; the organisation of information)

Ontological aspects of computation and information processing such as distributed processing, emergent properties, formal ontology, network structures, information as the stuff of the world, information and causal relations.

Computational approaches to the mind and consciousness include good old-fashioned Artificial Intelligence work (GOFAI), and post-computational approaches include situated and embodied cognition, for example, social robotics (COG, KISMET, Aibo soccer robots, and so on), enactivism, and the overlap between the neuroscientific, phenome-nological, and intersubjective approaches. The latter would also include hybrid – computational+post-computational – systems work.

Information ethics, as developed by Floridi, Mathiesen, Van den Hoven, Moor, Johnson and others, can be seen as the study of the moral issues arising from information. It has been characterized as a macro ethics, potentially challenging traditional ethical theories such as Consequentialism and Deontologism. However is information ethics too abstract to be applicable? In particular, can it provide a theoretical basis for computing ethics, which all too often is obliged to focus on professional issues and the minutiae of empirical case studies? Does information ethics require to have its own computational turn? And does computing ethics require more of a theoretical turn? Papers which address the theoretical and empirical development of information ethics, the intersection of computing and information ethics, new topics, ideas, controversies and case studies in information and computing ethics will be welcome in this track.

For this session papers at the crossroads of logic, epistemology, philosophy of science and ICT/Computing, such as the philosophy of AI, can be submitted. Furthermore, papers on the social, juridical or philosophical aspects of ICT, which do not fit in with other tracks, are welcome here.

Information technology plays a main role in the increasing interdependence, integration and interaction among people and corporations in disparate locations around the world. This track will focus on the ethical and political issues that arise due to this rapid development, including, but not limited to ethical and political issues in cross-cultural, computer-mediated communication, Internet governance, IT in developing countries, and the cultural impact of global information technologies.

For whom and by who are technologies developed? Who and what is made visible or invisible by the standardisations and categorisations integral to technoscientific processes and artefacts? Who participates and on what and whose terms? Who is included in the construction of technological discourses and artefacts? How do issues concering gender, class, ethnicity, age etc. and their intersectionality matter? How is the relation between ‘the’ social and ‘the’ technical through new technologies reconfigured?

These are some of our main questions. We want to bring scholars together who are engaged in opening the blackbox of new technologies such as computing, AI, etc. and who want to challenge processes of normalisations. We invite research concerning gender and diversity in technology/IT; critical analyses from science and technology studies, feminist/gender research, postcolonial studies and other social and cultural studies of technoscientific practices in general. We are also looking for conceptualisations and ideas with regard to possibilities for intervention, change and alternative technology design, “in the engine rooms of technological production’ (Wajcman 1991, p. 164)””.

This track aims to strengthen the collaboration between roboticists, philosophers, and scholars of social science. To solicit computer ethics experts to contribute to develop the Roadmap. To open a discussion on some common topics.

Because Roboethics shares many 'sensitive areas' with Computer Ethics and Information Ethics (as well as Bioethics), we solicit papers examining - from different angles, and trying to reach common platforms - issues such as:

·

Social (Robotics and job market; Cost benefit analysis; Transparency and public consensus; Robots as things);

We solicit papers examining the above ethical issue - but not limited to – which are described from a scientists standpoint, viewing them from the philosophical approach. We propose also the following general topics: what is intelligence, information ethics and roboethics, a human-centred ethics and, robotics and globalization.